NEW: Garmin MTB Metrics in Today’s Plan

3 October 2019

The new mountain bike dynamics metrics from Garmin aim to show how hard the course you rode was, and also how well you rode it. The two metrics which we display are ‘Grit’ and ‘Flow’.

Grit: This metric shows how difficult the course was. It uses GPS, accelerometer and elevation data to produce a grit score. The higher the ‘Grit’ score the tougher or more challenging the course was. As an indicator a score of 0-20 is considered easy, 20-40 moderate and 40+ to be hard

Flow: This is a metric that can be used to show how well you rode a particular route or section of a route. The metric looks at the momentum and smoothness of the ride. A lower score is considered to have more ‘Flow’. As an indicator a score of 0-1 is considered smooth, 2-20 moderate and 20+ to be rough.

An example of where you may use this metric is to track or compare different rides over a specific course. You can compare scores for the whole course, or because you have the ability to create intervals in your ride file, you can track the metric for specific section of the course. This will give you the ability to see if improvements have been made or where it is possible to make up time.

The summary page on a file is an easy way to view the Grit and Flow of a ride. It gives you a quick snapshot of that activity the difficulty of the ride and how you rode it, you can then view the analysis page and intervals tab for more in depth detail.

Summary page

Fluid and calorie consumption

Garmin users are now able to track the energy demands of their ride, and also how they fueled during the activity. Both calories and fluid are recorded; you are able to track and analyse intake (in), expenditure (out) and deficit for both of these metrics.

There may be a variety of reasons as to why you track these metrics, one being its ability to monitor hydration. You may want to track the fluid intake vs expenditure to make sure that you have adequately hydrated, which will not only give you the best chance to recover, but also make sure you are ready to perform in your next workout or competition. The activity widget is clear and easy way to display and monitor a metric like this.

Activity widget

Respiration

Respiration rate is the number of breaths taken per minute (brpm). Measuring your respiration rate during an activity can be a good tool to assess effort level. When you exercise and as the intensity increases so does the need for more oxygen. The increased respiration rate is the bodies way of trying to get more oxygen into the body and the working muscles.

You can track this for an individual activity and have it included in your intervals table. This gives you the ability to track and monitor the respiratory rate for given workloads/intensities. In the intervals table to you will be given a respiratory rate for the file as a whole and also each individual interval.

Dashboard

Dashboards are another location you may want to configure so that you can view and analyse the MTB ride dynamic metrics, nutritional metrics and respiration rate. You can configure your dashboard widgets to show these, you can watch our masterclass video to find out how. Specific widgets you may choose to use are the daily time series widget, metric widget, activity widget.

Daily time series

Metrics table

Not all Garmin devices are compatible with these new metrics, head over to Garmin to check if your device is. Please contact support@todaysplan.com.au if you have any questions regarding this new metric.